Acclaimed cellist Maja Bugge (NO/UK) and award-winning pianist Dave Evans (UK) are touring new work grown from a collaboration which began two years ago with the work SORTLAND. This was a musical exploration of memory and place that was commissioned by and first presented at Sortland Jazz festival and featured specially created visuals by artist Adam York-Gregory.
Taking inspiration from narratives around nature, heritage, location and belonging, the work uses beats, melodies, language, riffs and grooves and experiments with space, stillness and repetition. Their music is at times joyful and playful, and at others quiet and vulnerable. It’s not afraid to go to the strangest or quietest of places.
Maja ́s music has the power to transform the space around her yet reflect and absorb it, and in doing so she creates an almost meditative-like state in the listener. We are transported into a world of undulating landscapes, distant echoes and slowly evolving patterns by music, which has the strange ability to convey - at the same time - the familiar and the unfamiliar.
– Steve Mead, Artistic Director, Manchester jazz festival